Another View: Udall amendment undermines free speech

The effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance isn't simply misguided. It's dishonest, and, even were it successful, it would be ineffective, as well.

Senate Democrats are forging ahead with a plan to bring a joint resolution to the floor that would add a 28th Amendment explicitly giving Congress the authority to regulate contributions and spending in federal elections.

The effort is ostensibly in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's widely lamented Citizens United decision and other rulings that have undone regulatory efforts of the past four decades.

But while the role of money in politics is a serious problem, it's difficult to take this effort seriously.

Think about it: The amendment, crafted by Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico and hyped by Senate Majority Leader as "the salvation of American politics," doesn't have a snowball's chance on the 4th of July. Democrats would need to find a passel of Republicans to get a two-thirds majority of Congress (impossible), and that's assuming they could get every Democrat to sign on (unlikely).

Were the amendment to pass, it would be the only time other than Prohibition that the Constitution has been amended to limit rights, and it would do so by granting Congress unimaginable authority to limit speech in the name of "political equality for all," a meaningless if catchy slogan that obfuscates the real impact of this amendment: a deck stacked in favor of incumbents.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee outlining its opposition to the amendment, the American Civil Liberties Union provided seven examples illustrative of the proposed amendment's threat to free speech. Among them:

» Congress would be allowed to restrict the publication of Secretary Hillary Clinton's forthcoming memoir "Hard Choices" were she to run for office.» Congress could criminalize a blog on the Huffington Post by Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, that accuses Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) of being a "climate change denier."» A district attorney running for reelection could selectively prosecute political opponents using state campaign finance restrictions.

"Such examples are not only plausible, they are endless," wrote the letter's authors.

And to what end? For all of the hype around the Citizens United decision extending "personhood" to corporations, it's unclear that the ruling has had a deleterious effect on money in politics.

Overturning Citizens United through a constitutional amendment that undermines the First Amendment is not an answer. Democrats would be wise to drop the idea.

- Battle Creek Enquirer

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Another View: Udall amendment undermines free speech

The effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance isn't simply misguided. It's dishonest, and, even were it successful, it would be ineffective,